Planning Your Virtual Event

To leverage social media to support your virtual event, you have to consider three things:

1. Your Audience

2. Your Channels

3. Your Tools

In this article, we'll cover all three, from how to get your audience interested and pumped about your online shindig to getting your posts in front of the right people.

Let’s get to it…

Promoting Events On Social Media: Your Audience

ID Your Ideal Attendee

Ah, the ancient proverbial conundrum: If an event is thrown in the woods and no one is around to witness it, did it ever happen?

An event needs an audience, regardless of whether its purpose is to drive sales or announce a new product, service or feature.

You need to make sure you know exactly WHO you want to attend and WHAT it is they want from YOU. This is going to dictate your marketing approach moving forward.

Fail to identify your demographic during the planning stage and chances are, you’ll be wasting a lot of time and effort marketing to the wrong people.

Is your event aiming to inspire a younger, Gen-Z audience? Or perhaps Gen X are your crowd… Do attendees require pre-requisite knowledge of your service or products? What type of individual stands to benefit from attending?

Imagine the perfect attendee. What do they look like? How old are they? What interests them? What challenges do they have that you can solve?

These are the people that you'll be marketing to.

Your Social Media Channels

Where Does Your Audience Live?

You’ve already identified your ideal attendee, so, which social media channel fits the bill? There’s no point pouring thousands of £'s into ad spend on LinkedIn if your tribe lives on TikTok.

It might seem obvious, but have you ever had an ad appear in your feed on social media that didn’t fit your interests? We have – and you wouldn’t want to be the person in charge of those PPC campaigns when the event turns out to be a certified #dud.

Make Use of Native Event Invites

Did you know, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and to a lesser extent Instagram all have native (in-app) event invite and hosting capabilities?

This means that you can create custom event invites that can easily be shared within the platform in question.

Event notifications and updates are pushed directly to attendees, regardless of whether they follow your account or not, enabling you to market to your audience in the run-up to the event without the need for 3rd party integrations or e-shots.

Simply put: you stand a much higher chance of getting your promotional efforts seen by building them natively.

Whilst most will be aware of YouTube & Facebook’s event capabilities, fewer are aware of LinkedIn events.

Not only can you create an event invite but since late 2020, on an application-only basis, businesses can now submit a request to live stream on LinkedIn.

We’re all about seamless user experiences and what could be more seamless than inviting, marketing and hosting all under one roof?

Your SoMe Toolkit

Winning With Hashtags: Bringing It All Together

Hashtags are an invaluable tool to collate content and communications before, during and after your event.

Any self-respecting event organiser will know the power of a simple but effective hashtag. But not all hashtags are created equally.

Time to go back to school: never forget your #SUMS…

1)     It should be Short. Every additional character used increases the risk of getting it wrong, decreasing its chance of success.

2)     It should be Unique. Don’t let your content and comms efforts get lost in a sea of identical #’s.

3)     It must be Memorable. Make it simple to recall: short & relevant should do the trick e.g. #WeAreAkinSocialMediaFestival2023= #AkinFest23

4)     Make it Structured. See what we did in our example above? Event name, event type, year. Three very important pieces of information, especially if it’s a re-occurring event.

Pro Tip: Hashtag creation 101 - #SUMS: Short, Unique, Memorable, Structured.

Hashtags are not afterthoughts.

To execute a successful event hashtag, you need to make sure every post you put out uses it from the very beginning. Use it in your copy. Signpost it throughout your campaign. Remind people of it. #consistency is key.

We'd recommend encouraging your audience to contribute to it themselves, even using incentives to promote participation.

Incentives: Did Someone Say Free?

Incentives are a great way to help attract more attendees to your event. Very few people spend their days looking for business events to attend, so a little reward can act as a nice way to boost those sign-ups. The key to an effective incentive: give the people what they want!

Think back to earlier within this article where you diligently identified your perfect attendee. Good. Now, what’s going to pique their interest? Freebies? A Prize-draw? Self-Promotion? Whatever it is, don’t underestimate the power of the carrot to draw in the crowds.

“Early Bird” promotions are perhaps the most classic example of effective event incentives by making sign-ups time-bound and laced with FOMO.

Don’t forget to build reminders of these incentives into your posting schedule: a one-off post just won’t cut it.

Teaser Content

Woefully under-utilised in B2B circles but heavily relied upon in B2C events (e.g. Apple, Nike, Hollywood) – teaser content is an essential part of building interest and anticipation ahead of the big day.

This doesn’t mean giving away all the answers, just enough valuable insight and content to convince potential attendees in limbo to take action.

Don’t run into the classic trap of thinking your incredible agenda is powerful enough to promote sign-ups; you have to give a little more.

Powerful quotes from speakers, lists of topics covered, sneak peeks of new features… Whatever you choose, make sure it's strong enough to stop people in their tracks.

Countdowns

A countdown can be a great way of building anticipation for an event, think of it like a digital advent calendar minus the chocolates.

On every platform, aim to build excitement by posting countdown reminders for your event. It acts as an aid memoir for forgetful attendees, whilst creating a sense of urgency for those yet to sign up. Don’t be afraid to post multiple countdown reminders at key junctures, such as ticket releases, speaker announcements and the end of promotions/incentives.

Instagram has mastered the countdown allowing ‘countdown stickers’ to be added to any story post.

Viewers can subscribe to be notified of the event or ticket release, further boosting your chances of a successful sign-up.

Digital links & UTM Tracking

When marketing an online event through social media, it goes without saying that you will need to share a link to your virtual event or ticketing page. Without this link, your event is as good as dead.

But have you made the most of your event link?

A UTM code is a unique snippet of code that enables you to view data attached to any URL.

Now, let’s say you’ve promoted your event through Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. Oh go on, let’s throw Twitter into the mix as well.

Without any form of UTM tracking, how do you break down the effectiveness of your event promotion campaign by channel? Where will you focus your social activity next time? When did the most clicks occur by channel and following which posting initiative?

Take it from us, when the dust settles on your event, you’re going to want to check your UTM performance analytics to optimise your social activity for your next big event.

As we mentioned earlier, scatter-gun social media campaigns very rarely work to your advantage. Find the platform that compliments your business and speaks to your target audience, then, focus your attention on it.  

Paid promotions

Since you'll have defined your target audience based on your needs and goals for the online event, a paid ad campaign is a highly effective way of targeting those valuable attendees (with brand awareness, increases in followers and reach are a welcome by-product of most sponsored campaigns).

TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, LinkedIn… All have powerful advertising potential.

But heed this warning: promote with caution. Sponsored Ad campaigns can run your budget ragged without the correct expertise driving them.

Appointing a specialist to set up and run your Ad campaigns is a sound investment if you lack the experience and know-how. A/B testing, PPC optimisation…These aren’t just buzzwords, but essential considerations to put your budget to the best use.

Pixels, Tags & GDN

Similar to UTM codes – Pixels & Tags are unique lines of code embedded into your website to enable targeting and conversion tracking from your social media channels.

YouTube utilise the Google Display Network, LinkedIn; Insight Tags, Insta and Facebook; the Pixel. It’s all the same, code used to re-target ads and content to those most likely to engage.

Sounds complicated. Let’s turn it down a notch. Here’s an example of a pixel at work.

Someone lands on your website and visits your event page or blog. The pixel registers their data, allowing you to target those specific visitors with social media ads linked to your event.

Ever wondered why 10 minutes of browsing for “best toasters of 2022” online subsequently renders your Instagram feed an inescapable cornucopia of toaster titillation? Don’t lose valuable attendees to the depths of the internet. If they’ve already shown an interest by viewing brand-related content through your website, invite them to your event!

#Pixels baby

Identify & Leverage Your Influencer Network

To increase the number of attendees to your online event, you have to increase your post reach. But what if your company page only has a handful of followers? How do you get the word out without paid advertising?

Time to put your influencer network… to work.

At akin, we define potential “Influencers” under 4 categories:

Direct - Employees of your business, from the apprentice through to the CEO.

Advocates - People with a vested interest in your success.

Partners - Suppliers to and affiliates of your business.

Indirect - Individuals or businesses working within your industry, with no direct connection, but importantly, no conflict with your business.

This is your real network.

Looks a little more impressive than your follower count might suggest.

Leveraging your network is simple. Working from top to bottom, identify the individuals and businesses that fall under each Influencer type.

As a minimum, kindly request that they re-share your content. In some cases, we'd advise creating marketing assets to assist in the promotion, say, for event speakers and sponsors. Send clear event promotion guidelines to those within your business to ensure a consistent message is promoted.

You’ll be surprised at how many people are prepared to share their platform these days although you might have to return the favour in the future!

Getting your “Indirect Influencers” to promote your event requires a little more strategy, but shouldn’t be overlooked.

Approach those with networks relevant to your business, such as industry publications, thought leaders and well-reputed brands.

Typically, a little give and take is necessary to tap into their valuable network. As a starter, consider the following.

What do they stand to gain from promoting your event? Think potential commission, affiliate fees, exposure, free tickets, cross-brand promotion, quid pro quo Clarice… Basically: what’s in it for them?

Case study: Adworld

It would be remiss of us to overlook the marketing mastery of the annual Ad World conference.

Now look, it might seem a little cheap to use a platform renowned for its marketing expertise to demonstrate best-practice, but stick with us, there are lessons to be learnt...

Background

Every year, Adworld seeks to draw thousands of online marketing and sales professionals to attend a series of exhibitions, workshops, streams and keynotes.

Adworld pulls out all the stops across social media, executing every tip included in this list and then some.

In 2020, they executed the largest online advertising event in history, clocking over 18,500 attendees, streaming over 91,000 hours of content, across 140 countries. Quite the achievement, and worth checking out.

What they did well...

1. Targeted marketing professionals with paid ads, focusing heavily on re-targeted ads to those who visited their website and landing page.

2. Incentivised ticket sales through a series of special offers and discounts throughout the year – promoted through organic and paid social posts.

3. Leveraged their influencer network TO THE MAX – encouraging speakers and sponsors to promote and market the event within their social networks.

4. Sign-posted Adworld content using consistent subtle visual cues on ALL posts (Adworld logo OR a colourful abstract pattern unique to the event)

5. Promoted two hashtags to collate user-generated content (UGC) – #ADW20 & #Adworld

6. Shared heaps of teaser content from speakers to build interest and credibility – predominantly through Instagram

7. Adworld knew its audience. They were only interested in getting the right people to attend, namely those who would value and benefit from attending the event.

This translated to hyper-targeted, high-conversion social media activity.

We’d thoroughly recommend heading to the #AdworldconfInstagram account and scrolling through the post history in the run-up to the November 2020 event. Congrats @Adworld!

Wrap-Up

That’s probably enough to give most some food for thought. Social media and successful ‘e-vents’ go hand-in-hand. Whilst our tips are by no means exhaustive, they’re tried and tested means to encourage those all-important sign-ups:

1. ID your ideal attendee and cater your promo to them.

2. Where possible, streamline all event activity in one platform (comms, ticketing, streaming etc.)

3. Know your SoMe channels: focus your organic posting efforts where your attendees spend the majority of their scrolling time.

4. Break out the toolkit: Paid promo posts, countdowns, UTM tracking, re-targeting and more.

5. Leverage your influencer network – ALL of it.

Thanks for reading, for more tips, tricks and insights, follow the akin.digital social channels on LinkedIn and Instagram.